Human Traces

First things first, if you're expecting another Birdsong here, read something else. This is a far more ambitious, difficult, challenging and yes lengthy book than it's illustrious predecessor, dealing with mental illness and the search for what makes us truly human.

Clearly Faulks has invested a great deal of time, effort and research into this topic and the natrrative is often peppered with lengthy and complicated narratives on the the history, nature and psychology of mental illness, Sadly however, the book although beautifully written and well crafted, cannot bear the weight of its lofty ambitions and does not really deliver a believable, coherent or cogent storyline when it matters most. The ending feels rushed and unsatisfactory and the way he shoehorns in battle scenes from Daniel fighting in WW1 is contrived, pointless and irrevelant to the rest of the storyline.

Despite these major complaints however, i never found the book less than gripping, wholly interesting and although deeply flawed, is a testament (ending notwithstanding) to Faulks ingenuity, scope and skills as a consummate modern novelist.

Captivating... (0/0 people found this helpful)

If like me you have a strange combination of interests, including neuroscience and paleontology, this is a charming read.

Unengaging (0/0 people found this helpful)

Imagine watching a cinematic epic through reversed binoculars. No doubt one would get a sense that there was a story worth telling, but inevitably one would feel detached and as though watching the plot unfold at a distance. This is the sense that "Human Traces" gave me.

The novel tells the story of two pioneers in the understanding and treatment of mental illness through the late 19th and early 20th centuries: a worthy theme and undoubtedly one worth telling. But the telling of the story was disjointed and we seemed to move from situation to situation and from place to place without any clear sense of how we had got from one to another, of why we had moved or even why we should care that we had moved. Characters were one-dimensional and, when their stories did start to develop, the problems they faced were in many cases resolved too easily to be really satisfying (for example the story of Sonia's first marriage). Perhaps if the writing had been more engaging I would have found more merit in the book but, frankly, I found it profoundly tedious for the most part. There must have been something that kept me reading, or at least skimming, through 600 pages. Perhaps Sebastian Faulk's very real literary skill, as demonstrated in Birdsong, surfaces enough in the prose of "Human Traces" to keep one loosely involved but, for me, it was not enough to bring the story to life.

Reading other reviews it's clear that some people think this is a good read, even a great read, and if those reviews ring true to you, perhaps you will agree with them after reading "Human Traces". But for my money this is not great literature, it's not even a particularly good read and if you are interested in the development of the understanding and treatment of mental illness there are more readable and informative non fiction books (e.g. Roy Porter's "Madness").

Fascinating (0/0 people found this helpful)

I found this book very interesting and compelling, though I agree with previous reviewers that the discussion of the history of psychiatry does take over and becomes rather heavy going in places. However, the development of the central characters more than compensates - and by the time the 22 page transcription of a speech on evolutionary psychology came round I found myself really rooting for the speaker!

The themes interweave very subtly with the imagery throughout the book - as physical landscapes and buildings become symbols and mirrors of the internal landscape of the brain. Some of this is a tad self-conscious - but given the over-arching theme of human awareness, this in itself becomes part of the literary device of the novel.

There were a couple of places where the story feels a bit patchy - as if Faulks lost his train of thought in the writing - though again, maybe that's the point.

I felt a bit frustrated that certain characters were mentioned by name, but were then completely excluded from the plot, even though their introduction in the book seemed pivotal.

Faulks' portrayal of the inner workings of a psychotic mind comes late in the book, and left me wishing that he'd included this earlier as a way of informing the theorising and lending intrigue.

All in all I loved this book and really couldn't put it down, and I can forgive any clumsiness on the part of the author in the light of the book's enormous humanity and particular subject matter.

A very involved, complex and philosophical novel. (3/4 people found this helpful)

This novel is a true literary work of art. It's deep and complex, and Faulks approaches the minefield of "the mind" in a clear and sensitive way. He also writes "Human Traces" in a style quite reminiscent of the literary greats of the nineteenth century, so you have to be careful not to try and rush it along as you're reading.

The characters are likeable and believable from the beginning. There's young Sonia who almost as soon as the novel begins, finds herself in a clearly unsuitable marriage, her bright brother Thomas, to whom she is devoted, and the ambitious French lad Jacques who comes from a quite different background. The boys meet by chance and, overcoming the language barrier, discover their mutual passion for science and the human mind. They are kindred souls, and their quest for understanding the mind is to take them along many, and sometimes different, paths - the Salpetriere in Paris, a county lunatic asylum in England, and across Europe, until they are considered quite renowned in their field of psychiatry.

Faulks's novel traverses one of the most illuminating periods in the history of psychiatry - the transitional phase from the late nineteenth century across into the twentieth and the First World War. Covering changes in care from restraint, to moral treatment, to psychiatry and neurological and drug treaments, the novel is a really good introduction to the history of psychiatry and one of its' major developmental phases.

In a way its' strength is also its' weakness. There are just a few places where I wished that Faulks had concentrated slightly less on the psychiatry and slightly more on the plot and characters. The depth of detail about the psychiatry can be bewildering and is probably not of interest to everyone. If I could have given it 4.5 stars I would! However, it's a small criticism and overall I can highly recommend the book.

Sebastian Faulks

Reader Reviews:

Flawed and frustrating but eminently readable (0/0 people found this helpful)

Captivating... (0/0 people found this helpful)

Unengaging (0/0 people found this helpful)

Fascinating (0/0 people found this helpful)

A very involved, complex and philosophical novel. (3/4 people found this helpful)

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